fl  1 


ML  #3, 


CT 

275 

.B69 

B695 

1895 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/annalsofinverteb01boyk 


(In  fancy  dress  as  "Evangeline.") 


 .  

THE  ANNALS 


OF 


AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


BY 

LAURETTE  XISBET  BOYKIN. 


"  Happy  are  the  people  whose  annals  are  tiresome." 

— Montesquieit 


PRESS  OF 
BRAXDOX  PRIXTIXG  COMPANY. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1895, 
By  Mrs.  S.  Boykin, 
in  the  Office  of  the  librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


(0  7  9/ 


TO 

MY  PHYSICIAN, 

WHOSE  DAILY  TASK  IS  TO  HELP  OTHERS  AND 
TO  BRING  THEM  OUT  OF  PAIN. 


170703 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


170703 


"  The  light  across  our  darkness  drifts  ; 

More  than  we  asked  our  God  has  given.. 
We  asked  for  her  all  earth's  poor  gifts, 
He  gave  her  —  heaven  !  " 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


"Quod  tetigit  ilia  ornavii." 

Laurette  Xisbet  Boy  kin  was  born  in  Macon, 
Ga.,  on  the  7th  of  June,  1866.  at  the  residence  of 
her  grandfather.  Judge  Eugenius  A.  Xisbet.  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Georgia.  She  died  in  Nashville, 
Tenn.,  on  the  1st  da}*  of  July.  1894. 

From  her  beautiful  childhood  to  her  brilliant 
womanhood,  she  was  a  most  interesting  personal- 
ity. A  record  kept  of  her  infantile  prattle,  from 
two  to  six  years  of  age,  shows  an  intellectual 
precocity  which,  while  gratifying  to  her  parents, 
filled  them  with  alarm  for  the  future  well-being 
of  their  child  —  for  years  the  only  one.  It  is  re- 
corded that  she  could  repeat  several  Psalms,  the 
Ten  Commandments  and  short  poems  when  three 
years  of  age,  and.  at  five,  read  any  child's  book. 
Nursery  stories  she  read  in  French  at  the  same 
age,  being  taught  sight  reading  by  a  native 
teacher.  At  nine  she  could  repeat  the  whole  of 
the  Shorter  Catechism.  The  limits  of  this  sketch 
will  not  admit  of  even  a  few  of  the  wise  remarks 
of  this  child,  showing  a  discriminating  power  of 
thought  that  would  have  done  credit  to  an  adult. 
She  was  surrounded  with  little  cousins,  but  loved 


(7) 


8 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


most  to  be  with  her  mother  or  nurse,  or  alone. 
Her  childish  scrap-books,  albums  and  herbariums 
are  still  in  evidence  of  the  originality  and  bright- 
ness of  the  little  girl.  We  recall  her  sitting  for 
hours,  on  sunny  afternoons,  in  a  flower  garden 
watching  the  busy  community  of  a  large  ant  hill 
in  one  of  the  walks.  She  became  acquainted  with 
their  intelligent  municipal  government  and  do- 
mestic habits;  and  her  father  placed  in  her  hands 
Prof.  Willet's  book  on  the  "Wonders  of  Insect 
Life,"  which  she  read  with  the  greatest  delight. 

Another  favorite  pastime  was  stealing  up  to 
her  father's  study  at  night  and  lying  on  a  couch, 
by  the  window,  gazing  at  the  stars.  An  astro- 
nomical chart  was  furnished  her,  and  with  this 
she  learned  to  name  and  locate  all  the  Constella- 
tions. It  was  in  her  father's  study  that  she  be- 
came a  student  of  the  Bible,  at  the  tender  age  of 
nine  years.  Eminently  religious  by  nature,  she 
took  hold  of  the  great  truths  of  Christianity  with 
such  understanding  and  belief  that  her  teachers  in 
the  Sunday  school  professed  themselves  amazed. 

Music  was  early  a  passion  with  her,  and  she 
mastered  it  with  the  ease  that  she  did  every  thing 
else.  We  recall  her  rapture  as  she  would  lie 
prone  upon  the  rug,  on  winter  evenings,  listen- 
ing to  the  flute  and  piano,  as  played  by  Sidney 
Lanier  and  her  mother.    In  after  years,  when  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL,  SKETCH. 


9 


poet  had  removed  from  Georgia,  and  was  then 
unrecognized  as  the  genius  he  is  acknowledged 
to  have  been,  she,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  would 
read  his  poems  and  point  out  beauties  or  explain 
obscurities  that  were  hidden  from  critics  older 
and  more  learned  than  she.  An  essay  she  wrote 
a  year  or  two  later  on  the  "  Home  Life  of  Lanier." 
and  read  before  a  literary  club  in  Atlanta,  Ga., 
was  very  much  applauded  for  its  beaut}*  of  thought 
and  diction. 

At  the  age  of  eight  or  nine  we  find  her  forced 
to  leave  school  for  eighteen  months.  Vaulting 
ambition  in  the  child,  and  unintentional  forcing 
by  her  parents  and  teachers,  overstrained  the 
nerves  of  her  delicate  physique,  and  prostration 
resulted.  With  restoration  to  health  she  returned 
to  school,  and  we  find  her,  after  going  brilliantly 
through  the  public  schools,  leaving  her  home  for 
Shorter  College,  Rome,  Ga.,  at  the  age  of  fifteen. 
Three  years  of  college  life,  with  its  disastrous 
physical  results,  are  recalled  now  with  the  keen- 
est pain.  No  pupil  ever  made  a  more  shining 
record.  In  the  general  curriculum  of  study,  in 
the  languages,  in  music,  in  elocution  and  art,  she 
stood  facile  princeps.  Her  studious  habits,  and 
exhausting  practice  on  the  piano,  doubtless  sowed 
the  seeds  that  bore  the  fruit  of  physical  delicacy 
and  disease  that  shortened  her  life. 


IO  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

With  a  beautiful  face,  every  feature  of  which 
was  of  classic  mold,  a  lissome  form,  every  move- 
ment of  which  was  of  Delsartean  grace,  it  is  not 
surprising  that,  after  leaving  school,  she  should 
have  shone  a  very  star  in  society,  a  queen  of  the 
salon.  This  experience,  alas,  like  the  others,  was 
hurtful  in  its  passionate  intensity  and  enthusiasm. 
Her  fine  nature,  exquisitely  attuned  to  pain  and 
pleasure,  quaffed  deep  draughts  of  both,  and  left 
her,  after  a  fewT  years,  a  woman  well  acquainted 
with  human  nature,  marked  as  a  brilliant  conver- 
sationalist, a  notable  person  of  influence,  but 
physically  fragile  and  with  vital  forces  spent. 
Her  love  of  study  was  inherent,  and  she  never 
for  a  moment  relaxed  in  her  omniverous  reading. 
She  searched  for  truth  —  truth  religious,  truth 
scientific,  truth  philosophical,  for  the  sincere 
pleasure  of  the  mental  exercise.  Indeed,  the  ab- 
normal activity  of  her  brain  was  the  sure  cause 
of  her  early  death. 

She  had  a  true  artistic  soul.  Nature  in  its 
myriad  phases  appealed  passionateby  to  her,  and 
form  and  color  spoke  to  her  as  to  an  artist.  A 
votary  of  art,  and  imbued  with  aestheticism,  she 
created  beauty  every  where.  A  discord  in  dress 
or  in  house  decoration  hurt  her  as  painfully  as  a 
dissonance  in  music.  The  perfume  of  the  orange 
blossom,  exhaled  from  the  groves  of  Florida,  in- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


II 


toxicated  her  (as  she  said)  more  than  it  did  the 
bees  that  swarmed  among  the  branches.  With 
this  super-sensitive  nature,  this  extremely  deli- 
cate and  nervous  organization,  is  it  surprising 
that,  like  a  restless  bird  imprisoned,  she  should 
have  fallen  exhausted,  and,  when  freed  from  the 
bars  that  fettered  it,  her  soul  should  have  swiftly 
winged  its  flight  to  a  more  congenial  home? 
She  was  prostrated  with  neurasthenia,  and,  for 
thirteen  months,  lay  upon  her  bed,  a  miracle  of 
gentle  and  uncomplaining  patience.  Six  months 
previous  to  her  death,  consumption  seized  upon 
her  devitalized  system  and  hope  died. 

Leaving  the  "  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unrest- 
ing sea"- — with  an  earnest  whisper,  "I  am  all 
peace,"  her  soul  floated  heavenward,  and 

"  Out  of  the  day  aud  night 
A  joy  had  taken  flight," 

from  the  aching  heart  of 

Her  Mother. 


PROLOGUE. 


PROLOGUE. 


'•  We  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of. 
And  our  little  life  is  rounded  with  a  sleep." 

— Shakespeare. 


This  is  to  be  no  proper  history,  but  a  selfish 
and  intimate  chronicle  of  pain  and  pleasure ; 
woven  out  of  a  tissue  of  shadows,  enacted  be- 
yond the  reach  of  eventful  and  objective  life,  in 
the  realm  of  sub-consciousness,  and  distilled  from 
the  necrotic  subtleties  and  killing  keennesses  of 
a  morbid  mentality,  turned  inward,  to  feed  upon 
itself. 


(15) 


I. 

THE  HIDDEN  TERROR. 


2 


I. 


THE  HIDDEN  TERROR. 

"  That  door  could  lead  to  hell  ? 
That  shining  merely  meant 
Damnation  ?  " 

—Mrs.  Browning . 


If  you  had  looked  in  upon  a  certain  reception 
held  in  a  city  home  one  night  in  October,  you 
might  have  seen  me,  standing  under  a  blaze  of 
light  in  a  group  of  people.  Around  me  you 
would  have  noticed  groups  laughing  and  talking 
in  the  unnatural  key  common  to  overfilled  draw- 
ing rooms.  Beyond,  you  would  have  heard  an 
•orchestra  of  strings,  urging  these  excited  voices 
to  a  keener  pitch. 

On  every  hand  you  would  have  felt  the  pres- 
ence of  brilliancy,  carelessness  and  flattery,  held 
under  by  an  omnipresent  tyranny  of  artificial 
decorum. 

If  you  are  a  vivisectionist,  your  eyes  would 
surely  have  wandered  back  to  me,  and  singled 

(19) 


20  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

me  out  as  a  supreme  type  of  incandescent  life, 
raised  to  concert  pitch. 

What  you  would  not  have  seen  was  a  panic  - 
apprehension  that  pressed  in  upon  m}r  heated 
brain,  and  turned  me  sick  with  fear. 

A  thousand  nights  of  social  dissipation,  fol- 
lowing a  thousand  days  of  ambitious  effort  at 
school,  both  acting  upon  an  unbalanced  and  sen- 
sitive organism,  had  brought  me  to  the  brink  of 
nervous  exhaustion  ;  and,  as  I  stood  thus,  dog- 
gedly playing  my  gruesome  part,  the  conviction 
spread  itself  like  poison  through  my  veins,  that 
something  was  wrong  with  my  head.  For  months 
I  had  been  fighting  headache,  but  here  was  an 
enemy  more  portentous  than  any  physical  dis- 
comfort. 

I  heard  my  voice  saying  accustomed  things  ; 
I  perceived  my  body  undulating  through  the 
suite  of  rooms ;  but  why  I  acted,  or  what  I  said, 
I  could  not  tell.  My  behavior  was  automatic  — 
born  of  a  galvanized  effort,  which  consciousness 
did  but  barely  record. 

This  was  the  Hidden  Terror  that  spread  its 
invisible,  vampire  wings  above  me.    My  head 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


21 


throbbed  ominously ;  my  spine  pulsated ;  my 
eyes  glittered.  All  that  remained  of  my  normal 
■self  was  a  characteristic  repression,  augmented 
.now  into  exquisite  trickery,  by  which  I  hid,  in 
slight,  deft  concealments,  the  confusion  of  my 
mind  from  my  friends. 

So,  stricken  with  bewilderment,  and  infinitely 
weary,  I  drifted  across  the  evening  like  a  ship 
without  a  rudder  ;  and,  at  the  end,  found  myself 
driving  home  in  my  escort's  carriage.  I  had 
hoped,  vaguely,  to  shut  out  the  Hidden  Terror  in 
the  coolness  and  darkness  of  the  night. 

But  there  to  my  side  It  clung,  sinister  and 
hideous;  and  the  fear  of  It  froze  my  scalp. 


II. 


II. 


COLLAPSE. 

"  After  me  —  the  deluge." 

— Louis  XV. 


A  few  minutes  later  —  or  was  it  two  eterni- 
ties?—  we  stood  alone,  together — my  Terror  and 
I  —  in  my  bed-chamber. 

What  came  next?  For  the  life  of  me,  I  could 
not  think.  The  room  revealed  the  extravagant 
disarray  following  a  young  woman's  evening 
toilette  ;  but  I  could  not  understand  what  it 
meant,  or  why  I  should  be  there. 

The  future  was  a  blank ;  the  present,  a  blot. 
My  past  fell  awajr  from  me  like  a  shattered 
thing ;  and  identity  trembled  in  the  balance. 

One  vivid  idea,  from  out  this  chaos,  impressed 
itself  on  me.  It  was  that  I  was  a  Human  Violin, 
which  some  unmerciful  hand  had  strung  up  to  a 
breaking  pitch,  and  left  to  vibrate  until  its  heart 
broke. 

(25) 


26  ANNAIyS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

Would  nobody  come  to  loosen  the  screws 
under  my  forehead?  Mechanically,  or  by  some 
dim  association  of  ideas,  I  lifted  my  hands  to 
unfasten  my  hair.  The  movement  sent  a  spasm 
of  pain  through  me,  so  intense  that,  with  a  quiv- 
ering cry,  I  fell  prostrate  to  the  floor;  and  Time 
and  Terror  were  no  more. 


III. 

THE  CRUEL  COST. 


III. 


THE  CRUEL  COST. 

"  First  or  last  —  we  must  pay  our  entire  debt." 

— Rmerson . 

"  And  some  are  sulky,  while  some  will  plunge  ; 
Some  you  must  gentle,  and  some  you  must  lunge. 
Some  —  there  are  losses  in  every  trade  — 
Will  break  their  hearts  ere  bitted  and  made, 
Will  fight  like  fiends  as  the  rope  cuts  hard 
And  die  dumb-mad  in  the  breaking  yard.'" 

— Kipling. 


When  I  opened  my  eyes  it  was  broad  day.  I 
lay  in  bed,  and  my  room  was  darkened.  In  spite 
of  complete  subsidence  of  strength,  my  first  sen- 
sation was  that  of  grateful  relief  to  see  that,  once 
more,  I  coherently  recognized  objects  around  me 
and  knewT  somewhat  of  the  meaning  of  myself. 

A  physician  was  talking,  in  a  smothered  tone, 
to  my  mother,  at  the  farther  corner  of  my  room. 
I  heard  him  say  :  "A  case  of  neurasthenia  like 
this  demands  a  long  and  absolute  rest.  There 
must  be  no  reading,  no  company,  no  excitement, 
no  effort.    She  has  lived  a  long  and  tense  life  in 

(39) 


30  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


a  short  space  of  time.  These  intensities  of  study 
and  of  society  keep  the  candle  burning  at  both 
ends ;  and  now  Nature  must  be  paid  back  the 
debt.  I  want  her  to  lie  fallow."  (Imprisonment 
for  debt ! ) 

I  raised  my  head  feebly  to  see  who  was  thus 
pronouncing  sentence  upon  me.  As  I  did  so  a 
great  wave  of  pain  swept  down  my  spine,  and 
wrung  a  groan  from  me.  My  mother  turned 
to  the  bed,  her  face  pinched  with  anxiety. 
"Mamma!"  I  said,  petulantly  enough,  "I  can 
not  move  my  back  ! ' ' 

"Never  mind,  dear,"  she  replied;  "the  doc- 
tor says  you  are  to  lie  quite  still  now,  and  make 
believe  that  you  haven't  any  back  at  all ! " 

This  advice  to  live  without  a  spinal  column, 
supinely  inert,  was  given  by  my  mother  with  the 
forced  and  bantering  cheerfulness  which  people 
adopt  around  sick  folk,  when  the  outlook  is  mor- 
tally serious. 

I  answered  her  with  a  look  of  full  comprehen- 
sion, then  sank  down  into  myself — and  the  pil- 
lows ;  and  thus  my  Annals,  as  an  Invertebrate, 
began. 


IV. 

THE  LOST  RIVER. 


IV. 


THE  LOST  RIVER. 

"  I  am  going  a  long  way. 
To  the  island-valley  of  Avilion  — 
Where  I  will  heal  me  of  my  grievous  wound.  " 

—  Tennyson. 


From  this  time  forth  there  followed  an  endless 
vista  of  stupefied  days  and  nights,  all  exactly 
alike,  save  for  the  occasional  demarcation  of 
some  pang  —  acuter  than  its  felkws  —  that  would 
illumine  an  hour  into  a  reddened  landmark. 

I  have  no  definite  impression  of  those  first, 
gray-toned  months ;  for  I  was  inundated  wdth 
narcotics,  wThich  swept  me  far  out  from  my 
wonted  moorings,  where  I  floated  in  poppied 
calm,  careless  of  what  came, —  and  took  my  full 
of  rest. 

A  year  before,  I  had  taken  a  voyage  down  the 
St.  John's  River  in  Florida,  after  a  hurried  tour 
of  excitement  through  Cuba ;    and  the  mood 

3  (33) 


34  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


which  then  saturated  me  was  curiously  identical 
with  the  first  phase  of  my  illness. 

Then,  we  glided  for  days  along  banks  fringed 
with  the  illimitable  stretches  of  the  marshes,  or 
festooned  now  and  then  with  those  vain  and 
long-haired  trees  of  the  tropics,  which  are  for- 
ever bending  low  to  see  their  own  images  in  the 
water.  But  the  river  noticed  not  their  blandish- 
ments ;  for  it  was  asleep.  From  its  unconscious, 
heaving  bosom,  I  lifted  my  tired  eyelids  to  see, 
on  every  hand,  a  scene  steeped  in  hashheesh, 
over  which  a  lotus  branch  seemed  to  have  been 
waved.  The  color  of  sky  and  river  and  shore 
was  dyed  with  warm  richness  of  tone ;  but  so 
stilly  was  Nature's  great  heart,  beating  there  in 
that  forgotten  stream  of  Nepenthe,  that  the  land- 
scape melted  into  a  water-color  study;  and  nry 
soul  paused,  too,  to  dream  and  to  lie  still.  Only 
the  green  leaves  of  the  water-lilies  dared  to 
break  the  universal  placidity,  as  the  little  waves 
from  the  boat  touched  them ;  and  even  they  lifted 
their  heads  wearily,  and  let  them  fall  over  upon 
the  bosom  of  the  river,  as  a  half-awakened  child 
falls  back  into  sleep. 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


35 


Now,  in  my  canopied  bed,  I  was  repeating, 
subjectively,  that  experience.  But  then,  my 
pilot  was  Pleasure;  now,  his  twin  brother,  Pain, 
bore  me  down  the  Lost  River. 

And  this  was  all  that  I  wanted ;  I  said  to  my 
pilot : 

"  Give  me  long  rest  or  death  — 
Dark  death  or  dreamful  ease." 


V. 

LEES  OF  WINE. 


V. 


LEES  OF  WINE. 

"  Do  not  stir  too  deeply  ;  for  there  is  a  little  mud  at  the  bottom 
of  even-  thing." 

— De  Guerin. 


Apparently,  my  small  world  of  friends  were 
distressed  for  me,  thus  to  be  shattered,  for  they 
kept  my  room  redolent  with  flowers  ;  and  inco- 
herent love  notes,  which  I  hardly  read,  collected 
under  my  pillow.  But,  if  they  imagined  me  un- 
happy they  were  far  of  the  truth.  To  one,  spent 
as  I  was  from  a  fevered  life,  there  is  no  yearning 
like  the  y earning  for  subsidence ;  no  god  like 
Morpheus;  no  heaven  like  Nirvana. 

"  The  heart  asks  pleasure  first, 
And  theu,  excuse  from  paiu  ; 
Aud  theu,  those  little  auodyn.es 
That  deaden  suffering ; 
And  then  — 

to  go- 
to sleep." 

I  could  not  die  ;  I  lacked  the  energy  for  an 
act  so  pompous ;  but  I  had  ceased. 

(39) 


4-0  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE . 


Life  was  laid  away  on  a  back  shelf.  I  merely 
breathed  from  day  to  day  —  flinched  under  pain 
—  sighed  when  the  torture  dulled  —  and  turned, 
to  sleep. 

Every  thought  had  fretted  itself  to  sleep  — 
"  And  my  heart  was  a  handful  of  dust." 

The  intricate  relations  of  my  brilliant,  blun- 
dering career  filled  me  with  weariness  and  dis- 
gust. Like  Solomon,  I  asked  to  be  stayed  with 
flagons  and  comforted  with  apples,  for  I  was 
sick  of  love. 

Cui  bono  ?  These  incessant  protestations  ! 
Enough  that  I  had  fenced  well.  Was  that  such 
a  purpose  to  strive  for?  Power  is  good  ;  nay,  it 
is  delicious.  But  my  power  had  cost  me  a  cruel 
price,  since  every  nerve  was  feeling  the  drain  of 
the  expenditure. 

So  I  muttered;  and,  borne  away  in  the  sweep 
of  a  terrible  reaction,  I  struck  a  rockbed  of  in- 
difference. There,  the  hermit  soul  within  me 
came  unto  its  own  ;  and  I  turned  my  face  to  the 
wall,  to  confront  an  ego  which  was  all  that  was 
left  in  my  bitter  cup. 


VI. 

BOOK -BOUND. 


VI. 


BOOK-BOUND. 

"  Away,  away  !  For  thou  speakest  to  me  of  that  which,  in  all 
my  endless  life.  I  have  not  found,  and  shall  not  find." 

—Jean  Paul  Richter. 


I  used  to  look  pathetically  at  my  books,  writ- 
ten now  in  an  almost  unknown  tongue.  There 
they  stood  on  their  shelves,  waiting,  patient  and 
eloquent,  for  me.  They  had  mam*  things  to 
give  me.  but  I  could  not  bear  their  gifts  now. 
Often  I  had  to  barricade  my  eyes  from  them  with 
the  pillows,  so  keenry  did  their  suggestion  of 
forbidden  vitality  affront,  and  their  muteness  of 
importunity  hurt  me. 

•'  Not  now  —  Oh.  not  tonight  ! 
Too  clear  on  midnight's  deep 
Come  voice  and  hand  and  touch  ; 
The  heart  aches  overmuch. 
Hush  sounds  !  shut  out  the  light  ! 
A  little  — 

I  must  sleep." 

One  book  alone  I  could  not  rest  without.  It 
was  a  volume  of  essays  by  Robert  Louis  Steven- 

.  (43) 


44  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

son.  I  slept  with  it  under  my  head ;  stole  sips 
of  sentences  from  it  in  quiet  intervals,  if  the 
nurse  was  not  looking ;  and,  when  the  pressure 
against  my  brain  blurred  its  meaning,  would,  lie 
quite  still  for  hours  with  my  cheek  pressed  close 
to  its  open  face,  and  extract  the  essence  of  con- 
solation from  its  leaves.  .  .  .  Sometimes  I 
wet  its  dear  face  with  my  tears.  But  nobody 
but  Stevenson  saw  this. 


VII. 
A  VOICE. 


VII. 


A  VOICE. 

"  What  is  it  iu  me  that  makes  me  tremble  so  at  voices? 

"  Surely,  whoever  speaks  to  me  in  the  right  voice,  him  or  her  I 
shall  follow,  as  the  water  follows  the  moon,  with  fluid  steps,  any- 
where around  the  globe." 

—  Walt  Whitman. 


One  day  a  young  man  came  to  inquire  about 
me  of  mamma,  and  I  happened  to  overhear  their 
conversation  in  an  adjoining  room. 

He  was  what  I  must,  for  want  of  a  better 
name,  call  an  ex-dear.  I  had  preferred  him,  in 
that  other  life,  which  now  had  become  a  chapter 
of  ancient  history. 

Today  his  voice  sounded  like  a  different  thing. 
I  apprehended  it  for  the  first  time.  Those  ca- 
dences of  an  unbridled  temper, —  what  a  disso- 
nance they  made  on  the  air  !  The  critical  faculty 
arose  in  me  pitilessly,  and  would  not  acquit  him, 
for  all  his  evident  fondness  for  me.  I  buried  my 
face  in  the  pillow,  and  drew  the  coverlid  over 
my  head,  to  shut  his  voice  out.    From  this  day 


48 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


I  dehumanized  him  into  a  Lost  Illusion,  and 
wrapped  myself  up  in  superb  forgetfulness. 
Was  that  cruel  ?  No  matter.  It  was  also  hon- 
est. Emerson's  thought  came  to  justify  me : 
"  Not  always  can  flowers,  pearls,  poetry,  protes- 
tations, nor  even  home  in  another  heart,  content 
the  awful  soul  that  dwells  in  clay.  It  arouses 
itself  at  last  from  these  endearments,  as  toys,  and 
puts  on  the  harness  and  aspires  to  vast  and  uni- 
versal aims." 


VIII. 
RHYTHM. 


4 


VIII. 


RHYTHM. 

"  The  quaking  earth  did  quake  in  rhyme. 
Seas  ebbed  and  flowed  in  epic  chime." 

It  interested  me  to  watch  the  rhythm  of  sick- 
ness, its  musical  intervals  of  mood,  its  action  and 
reaction.  The  beautiful  laws  can  be  studied  in 
a  sick  room  as  well  as  out  under  the  antiseptic 
sky.  I  observed  that  —  Half  an  hour  after  break- 
fast every  morning,  I  waxed  cheerful.  Half  an 
hour  before  dark  every  afternoon,  I  waned  sad. 
In  the  morning  I  thought  —  What  a  handsome 
and  amiable  world  !  How  succulent  with  nitro- 
genous food  !  And.  as  another  invalid  once 
said,  my  bones  felt  sweeter  to  me.  In  the  after- 
noon I  thought  —  How  difficult  it  is  to  live  ! 
How  sad  are  the  inexorable  conditions  of  this, 
our  life,  feeding,  as  it  does,  upon  toil  and  pain 
and  death  !    And  then  my  bones  would  grate. 


52  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


The  morning  point  of  view  was  due  to  the 
mellowing  processes  of  digestion ;  while  that  of 
the  afternoon  came  when  the  nerves  were  worn 
with  the  friction  of  the  day. 

A  sentimentalist  would  consider  these  peri- 
odic moods  inspirations  and  presentiments.  I 
called  them  symptoms. 


THE  SECRET  OF  LIFE. 


IX. 


THE  SECRET  OF  LIFE. 

"  For  we  know  that  the  whole  creation  grroaneth.  ' 

— St.  Paul. 


Suffering  is  demoralizing  oftener  than  the 
man  of  platitudes  would  believe  ;  and  especially 
when  it  comes  through  sickness  it  engulfs  the 
whole  being,  conscience  and  memory,  will  and 
heart.  Nothing  can  save  the  invalid  from  idle- 
ness and  introspection.  The  faculty  of  objective 
perception,  which  in  health  keeps  us  wholesomely 
in  touch  with  the  world,  fades,  during  prolonged 
illness,  into  a  torturing  analysis  of  our  subjectiv- 
ity. The  sense  of  proportion  gives  way ;  values 
are  tangled,  and  a  vast  egoism  feeds  at  the  core 
of  consciousness. 

In  my  mind,  after  my  first  dream  of  rest  down 
the  Lost  River  was  over,  there  existed  but  three 
verities:  Me.  My  Sensations,  and  My  Doctor; 
cause,  effect,  and  cure. 

(55) 


56 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


I  was  satisfied  that  the  sun  rose  each  morning 
to  celebrate  my  illness ;  that  the  stars  leaned 
out  of  heaven  at  night  to  watch  over  my  troubled 
dreams;  that  the  solar  system,  in  fine,  revolved 
around  my  bed,  with  my  quivering  nerves  for 
radii,  running  out  from  this  center  to  the  furthest 
confines  of  space.  I  had  shrunk  to  the  dimen- 
sions of  this  focal  bed,  which  was  but  little  wider 
than  a  grave. 

Some  excuse  should  be  made  for  a  head  gone 
so  far  wrong  from  having  ached  too  much.  Em- 
ily Dickinson  apologized  for  me  when  she  said : 

"  Pain  has  au  element  of  blank, 
It  can  not  recollect 
When  it  began,  or  if  there  were 
A  day  when  it  was  not  ; 
It  has  no  future  but  itself." 

And  yet  in  spite  of  this  distortion  of  the  ego, 
the  education  I  received  under  my  tutelage  of 
suffering  was  a  veritable  benefit.  I  learned,  pri- 
marity,  to  differentiate  almost  every  gradation  of 
my  diseased  physical  sensations,  and  to  describe 
these  imps,  if  not  scientifically,  at  least  with  con- 
siderable rhetoric.  The  subsidiary  ills  I  bore 
with  serenity,  inasmuch  as  I  could  see  beyond 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


57 


them.  Greater  pangs  I  could  not  see  beyond, 
but  I  brightened  even  these  by  making  sport  of 
them  to  myself.  Thus  I  would  devise  a  chro- 
matic scale  of  pain  color,  including  all  my  shades 
of  discomfort.  There  was  the  scarlet  pain,  a  red- 
hot  agony  ;  steel-blue  pain,  which  was  incisive 
like  a  knife  ;  gray  pain,  a  leaden  ache ;  black 
pain,  that  stood  for  a  bruised  feeling;  green  pain, 
a  deathly  sensation  ;  indigo  pain,  which  I  pre- 
sume must  have  been  the  blues,  collected  to  the 
region  of  the  spine  ;  violet  pain,  or  an  exquisite 
tenderness  to  touch;  irridescent  pain,  felt  in  the 
changeful  nutter  of  the  heart. 

Ever}'  thing  is  relative ;  and  these  ridiculous 
chromatics,  practiced  upon  a  vibrating  nervous 
system,  gave  me  more  stimulus  than  mam-  a 
wearying  pleasure.  Moreover,  there  is,  in  a  cer- 
tain degree  or  class  of  pain,  a  wonderful  intoxi- 
cation to  thought.  Many  a  time,  in  "the  wee 
sma'  hours,"-  when  graveyards  yawn  (and  I 
could  not!)  have  I  spun  out,  under  the  excite- 
ment of  a  headache,  thoughts  which  painted 
themselves  as  with  fire  upon  the  black  vacuity 
of  the  night ;  thoughts  so  palpitant  with  life  that 


58  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

they  would  have  hurried  me  to  fame,  if  I  could 
have  recorded  or  recalled  them, — or  even  pos- 
sessed them. 

At  other  times  pain  awakened  the  sensibili- 
ties of  the  heart,  and  I  would  feel  myself  dissolv- 
ing with  compassion  toward  others  who  suffered. 
I  heard  the  march  of  the  great  army  of  pain- 
bearers  sounding  down  Time ;  and  my  heart 
warmed  to  my  comrades  with  an  almost  cosmic 
sympathy.  They,  like  me,  had  accepted  the  order 
of  life.  They  and  I  knew,  at  last,  that  the  secret 
of  all  things  is  Pain. 


X. 


RAIN  ON  THE  ROOF. 


X. 


RAIN  ON  THE  ROOF. 


"  The  human  soul  is  a  louely  thing." 

—Kipling 


The  long  rains  of  winter  had  now  .set  in,  and, 
for  three  months,  a  ceaseless  patter  npon  the 
roof  kept  time  to  the  wearing  reiteration  of 
thought  beating  inwardly  upon  my  brain.  Every 
channel  connected  with  the  outer  world  was  cut 
off,  and  my  tired  self  and  I  were  left  alone  to 
find  each  other  out. 

Violence  of  pain  was  gone;  the  Buddhist's 
heaven,  lent  by  opiates,  had  been  taken  away 
from  me,  and  there  followed  an  infinity  of  de- 
pression, from  the  sheer  memory  of  which  flesh 
and  blood  shrink.  The  rainy  days  I  lived 
through  were  saturated  with  unshed  tears.  In- 
stinctive emotions  controlled  kept  down  any  ex- 
pression of  despair.    I  did  not  even  complain.  I 

(61) 


62  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

could  not  trust  my  voice  to  speak ;  but,  under 
this  Spartan  silence,  the  bandages  had  slipped 
and  my  heart  bled.  There  was  no  use  denying 
it,  my  feelings  were  badly  hurt  thus  to  have  fal- 
len in  the  first  flush  of  the  fight.  A  mortal  sen- 
sitiveness about  my  condition  took  possession  of 
me.  It  was  as  if  the  outer  kryers  of  cuticle  had 
been  removed  and  the  nerves  exposed.  (In 
nerves,  I  was  so  rich !  In  nerve,  so  poor ! ) 
Every  companion  seemed  to  have  forsaken  me ; 
every  hope  to  have  frozen  and  died  of  cold.  A 
sense  of  unmitigated  loss  bore  down  like  the 
rain,  blotting  color  out  of  every  thing.  Henley 
has  reproduced  this  concomitant  of  disease  with 
marvelous  discrimination  in  his  hospital  poems. 
I  enacted  his  poems.  I  was  become,  like  him, 
one  of  those  pitiers  of  themselves ,  for  whom  Em- 
erson felt  such  sturdy  scorn. 

The  ceaseless  processes  of  thought  grew  to  be 
a  rack,  to  which  I  was  bound  hand  and  foot.  No 
array  of  terms  can  express  my  brain-weariness, 
under  the  pressure  and  perpetuity  of  these 
thoughts,  which  I  lacked  the  muscular  resistance 
to  hold  in  abeyance. 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


63 


One  physical  sensation  daily  oppressed  me  — 
that  of  sinking  through  the  bed.  Down  — down, 
I  felt  myself  lowered,  as  a  coffin,  into  a  grave. 


XL 

THE  GREAT  RELEASE. 


5 


XI. 


THE  GREAT  RELEASE. 

'  The  earth  would  be  no  longer  earth  for  me. 
The  life  out  of  all  life  was  gone  from  me. 
There  are  blind  ways  provided,  the  foredone 
Heart-weary  player  in  this  pageant  world 
Drops  out  b}-,  letting  the  main  masque  defile 
By  the  conspicuous  portal. 
I  am  through — just  through  !" 

— Robert  Browning . 


Inevitable  that  a  young  invalid,  cursed  as  I 
was,  with  the  artistic  temperament,  should  brood 
over  the  idea  of  death.  I  was,  indeed,  altogether 
accustomed  to  spinning  my  shroud,  for  I  was 
born  ancient  and  sad.  As  a  child,  I  had  been 
literally  haunted  by  my  own  ghost.  No  one 
ever  knew  how  man}T  tears  of  an  unavailing  sor- 
row I  shed  prematurely  over  my  grave. 

"Poor  little  one!"  I  said  to  myself,  "that 
must  die  before  she  has  begun  to  live.';  For 
then  I  passionately  desired  to  live. 

But  now  I  thought  of  death  with  more  long- 
(67) 


68  ANNAIyS  OF  AN  IN VKRTEBR ATK . 

ing  than  fear  or  dismay.  To  cease  upon  the 
midnight,  without  pain,  seemed  to  me  as  beauti- 
ful as  to  the  ravished  soul  of  Keats.  Too  beau- 
tiful to  be  true.  I  knew  better  than  to  suppose 
the  end  of  me  had  come.  I  knew,  as  the  un- 
happy Byron  knew  of  himself,  that  there  was 
that  within  me  which  should  "  tire  Torture  and 
Time."  The  curse  of  Tithonus  was  laid  upon 
the  tense  cords  beneath  my  temples  :  "  Me  only 
cruel  immortality  consumes.  I  wither  here  at 
the  quiet  limit  of  the  world." 

No  sign  escaped  me  of  this  impotent  hunger 
for  release.  They  said  I  was  patient.  Not  at 
all.  It  was  on^  that  in  some  former  state  of 
existence  (as  we  like  to  call  it)  I  had  lived  in 
Asia,  and  had  been  such  a  good  Buddhist  that, 
throughout  metemsychosis,  the  acceptance  of  the 
inevitable,  in  which  the  Old  World  religion  is 
steeped,  remained  a  structural  part  of  my  soul. 


XII. 

A  MONSTROSITY. 


XII. 


A  MONSTROSITY. 

Father,  forgive  them  ;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

— Si.  Luke. 

The  philosophy  by  which  I  accounted  for  this 
theosophic  trait  did  not  shield  me  from  bruises 
at  every  turn,  as  you  will  see. 

One  day,  when  I  had  been  fighting  harder 
than  usual  with  hypersesthesia,  a  neighbor  who 
had  come  to  see  me  was  admitted,  by  some  mis- 
chance of  a  servant,  into  my  room. 

She  was  bulky,  angular,  and  heavy-footed. 
Her  voice  showed  neither  the  texture  of  silk  nor 
of  velvet ;  her  intuition,  neither  purple  nor  fine 
linen.  She  was  homespun,  through  and  through, 
and  would  not,  under  any  circumstances,  have 
been  a  victim  of  nervous  prostration.  She  re- 
minded me  of  that  woman  in  the  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  who  carried  on  the  conversation  but 
not  the  argument.  After  talking  about  her  own 
(71) 


72  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

affairs  until  I  fain  would  have  shrieked,  she  rose 
to  go.  Turning  to  me,  she  said :  "  Why,  you 
look  just  as  well  as  I  do !  You  had  better  get 
out  of  that  bed  and  open  these  shutters  !  I  be- 
lieve you  are  just  lying  there  in  pink  cotton, 
bleaching  and  cuddling  yourself  !  If  you  had  as 
much  work  to  do  as  I  have,  you  would  be  flying 
around  right  now  like  other  folks,"  etc.,  etc. 

I  looked  through  her,  in  silence.  My  dog  and 
my  horse  could  have  taught  her  sympathy.  But 
then,  I  reflected,  she  was  probably  some  prehis- 
toric mammal,  capable  of  brutality  on  an  impres- 
sive scale  ! 

Nearly  everybody  vexed  me,  saying  I  looked 
well.  So  I  did,  owing  to  the  peculiarity  of  my 
illness,  and  to  the  half-light,  filtered  through  red 
curtains,  which  emphasized  certain  lines  of  my 
face,  while  it  concealed  others.  Moreover,  I 
knew  it  to  be  a  fictitious  beauty,  which  half  an 
hour  of  exertion  would  have  shattered.  I  re- 
sented the  necessity  of  wasting  protoplasm  in 
useless  good  looks.  How  could  that  bring  me 
surcease  of  desolation  ? 

A  wounded  soldier  does  not  need  ammunition. 


XIII. 

METAMORPHOSIS. 


XIII. 


METAMORPHOSIS. 


'•  My  desolation  does  begin  to  make  a  better  life.'' 

— Shakespeare. 

"  Thou  shalt  renounce,  abstain,  refrain  !  " 

— Goethe. 


A  wounded  soldier  does  not  need  ammunition. 
But  he  needs  courage.  ' '  The  best  use  of  fate  is 
to  teach  us  a  fatal  courage."  Out  of  the  niop- 
ings  of  these  many  months,  out  of  the  anguish, 
out  of  the  fatigue,  my  character  began,  slowly,  to 
cool  and  solidify.  I  had  reached  a  crisis  in  the 
evolution  of  spirit. 

During  the  '"long,  regretful  leisure"  of  the 
days,  my  life,  in  detail  and  as  an  entirety,  passed 
like  a  panorama  before  the  aching,  vivisecting 
intelligence.  Memory  became  preternaturally 
quickened.  Forgotten  episodes  of  childhood, 
old  sights,  dead  sounds,  and  withered  odors, 
crowded  my  consciousness.     Especially  did  my 


76  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

late  social  life  gall  me.  Scintillant  as  it  had 
been,  it  was  nevertheless  a  prolonged  outrage 
against  Nature  and  my  Good  Angel.  And,  when 
all  is  said  and  done,  what  is  la  vie  de  Boheme — 
but  inflammation?  My  relentless  mind  stood 
apart  in  infinite  disdain  from  these  intensities, 
and  wrote  upon  the  door-post,  Tekel  ! 

I  saw  clearly  enough  now,  in  my  present 
detachment,  that  the  causes  of  my  broken  health 
lay  hidden,  deep  down,  in  the  temperament  and 
will.  Congenital  defects  as  they  were,  for  which 
I  was  in  no  sense  responsible,  I  was  to  do  battle 
with  them,  henceforth.  Recovery  depended,  in 
the  last  analysis,  upon  my  inherent  potency.  It 
was  to  be  wrought  there  —  not  otherwhere.  It 
meant  almost  a  chemical  change  of  atoms.  Calm 
and  Vigilance  must  supersede  the  old  stress  and 
strain.  Invalids  commonly  have  to  give  up  a 
sport,  an  excess,  a  traveling  trip,  or  a  cup  of 
coffee.  I  had  to  renounce  everything  in  the 
world  toward  which  my  nature  turned.  Excite- 
ment had  been  bread  and  drink  to  me.  I  was 
now  to  learn  how  to  starve ;  and  starving, 
smile. 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE.  77 

The  task  of  remaking  my  life  looked  so  heavy 
and  difficult,  that  I  shrank  away  from  it  like  a 
person  coming  out  of  a  deep  sorrow.  I  was  in 
veritable  mourning,  for  I  had  lost  my  former  self. 

That  young  girl  who  used  to  float  through 
gaities  as  if  her  body  were  filled  with  ether  ;  whose 
nature  was  so  mistaken  in  its  ignorance,  so  rife 
with  life's  desire,  so  unequipped  for  its  exigency 
—  she,  who  called  herself  me  —  a  fair  impostor  !  — 
was  as  dead  as  anything  in  matter  can  be.  With- 
out vanity,  now  she  was  no  more,  I  could  idealize 
her.  She  seemed  like  a  little  dead  sister  ;  and,  at 
first,  when  her  spirit  hovered  OA^er  my  bed,  I 
would  turn  my  face  to  the  wall  and  weep  softfy 
over  her  pitiable  suicide. 

As  time  wore  on,  however,  this  extravagance 
of  subjective  sympathy  changed,  and  I  com- 
menced the  process  of  hardening  into  steel.  I 
was  making,  at  last,  an  hourly  effort  to  cauterize 
my  nerves.  I  longed  to  brutalize  myself,  to  eat, 
sleep,  laugh  and  act  more,  to  think  and  feel  less, 
to  take  things  sluggishly,  and  trample  out,  if  it 
might  be  possible,  the  sensitiveness  of  fibre  which 
made  me  impressionable  as  iodine  to  light.  , 


78  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

Like  the  noble  Walt  Whitman,  I  envied  the 
animals  their  aplomb,  their  placidity,  and  their 
elemental  nearness  to  Nature. 


XIV. 
DIVINATIONS. 


XIV. 


DIVINATIONS. 

When  thou  dost  return 
On  the  wave's  circulation, 
Beholding  the  shimmer. 
The  wild  dissipation, 
And,  out  of  endeavor 
To  change  and  to  flood, 
The  gas  becomes  solid, 
And  phantoms  and  nothings 
Return  to  be  things, 
And  endless  imbroglio 
Is  law  and  the  world. 
Then  first  shalt  thou  know. 
That  in  the  wild  turmoil. 
Horsed  on  the  proteus, 
Thou  ridest  to  power 
And  to  endurance." 

— Rmerson. 


And  so,  keeping  all  these  thoughts  in  my 
heart,  Great  Ideas  and  Beautiful  Insights  poured 
in  upon  me.  Facts  were  revealed  to  me  as  if  by 
clairvoyance,  and  I  began  to  see  things  in  their 
large  relations.  The  revelation  of  the  Physical 
Basis  underlying  all  things,  moods,  mentality, 
manners  and  morals  was  in  itself  well  worth  six 

6  (81) 


82  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

months  on  a  "  mattress-grave."  Then  the  Law 
of  Particles,  so  difficult  to  bring  home  to  an 
excessive  temperament,  grew  luminous  and  com- 
fortable to  me.  I  came  to  analyze  (as  I  also  illus- 
trated) the  Apathy  of  Will,  seen  in  the  victims 
of  abstraction  and  subjectivity.  Another  verity 
which  fascinated  me  long  was  that  Sadness  is  an 
essential  element  of  Beaut}7.  My  pulses  were 
beginning  to  keep  time  to  the  Rythm  of  the  Cos- 
mos. I  suppose  I  was  stumbling  into  the  domain 
of  Spencer,  ignorantly,  and  quite  unaware  of  the 
great  man's  theories. 

And  every  thought  that  came  to  my  bedside, 
with  its  veiled  face  and  silent  benediction,  urged 
me  to  one  focal  conviction  about  life  —  the  con- 
viction that  the  need  of  man,  at  the  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  is  to  grope  back  to  primordial  and 
simplified  Nature.  In  the  study  of,  and  reverence 
for,  Her  wise  Laws  rested  religion  enough  for  me. 
The  prayer  of  Socrates  should  be  my  resolve : 
"  May  it  be  mine  to  keep  the.  Unwritten  Laws!  " 

While  this  epoch  of  sickness  was  progressing 
my  eyes  took  on  a  phosphorescent  and  Asiatic 
expression,  as  though  the  soul  lighting  them  were 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE.  83 


time-worn  with  experience.  Stevenson  has  de- 
scribed the  look  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  occuli 
putres  —  or  eyes  rancid  with  expression,"  such  as 
belong  to  the  ancient  races,  and  to  some  dogs. 


XV. 


XV. 


BASIC. 

I  am  not  to  speak  to  you  : 

I  am  to  think  of  you 

When  I  sit  alone. 

Or  wake  at  night,  alone, 

I  am  to  wait. 

I  am  to  see  to  it  that 

I  do  not  lose  you." 

—  Walt  Whitman. 


It  has  appeared  that  I  was  out  of  tune  with 
individuals,  the  thought  of  whom  tired  or  hurt, 
or  revolted  me. 

To  this  morbid  deadness  there  was  a  notable 
exception  in  my  friendship  for  one  woman.  I 
say  friendship  because  no  language  furnishes  an 
adequate  term  for  such  a  relation.  But  it  was 
more  than  ordinary  friendship.  And  better,  I 
came  to  look  upon  it,  after  the  fire-proof  of  suf- 
fering to  which  it  had  been  subjected,  as  a  predi- 
lection, innate  and  congenital. 

In  the  dead  of  night,  when  the  house  was 
(87) 


88  ANNALS   OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

asleep,  and  even  the  street  pavements  hushed  and 
drowsed,  I  used  to  re-live,  with  a  choking  throat, 
the  involved  and  tragic  part  I  had  played  in  her 
destiny,  and  she,  by  reflex  action,  in  mine. 

How  could  I  do  otherwise  than  turn  toward 
her  personality,  so  responsive  and  so  superior  in 
taste  and  quality  to  my  own? 

We  hear  so  much  of  the  attraction  of  oppo- 
sites.  The  law  is  to  be  admitted  as  a  physiologi- 
cal exigency.  But,  upon  the  highest  and  most 
attenuated  plane  of  sympathy,  there  must  be 
identity  and  consent  before  there  can  be  commu- 
nion. To  my  Elect  I  belong,  and  most  of  all  to 
Her,  the  Queen  of  nry  Elect.  Shelley  spoke  for 
me  to  her  in  that  tiny  madigral,  beginning: 

"  One  name  is  too  often  profaned 
For  me  to  profane  it." 

And  recapitulating  this  firm  and  steadfast  rela- 
tion, I  perceived,  to  my  surprise,  that  whatever 
of  willfulness  might  be  my  limitation  in  matters 
of  love,  I  was  at  least  predestined  to  the  genius 
of  friendship. 


XVI. 


XVI. 


SOLSTICE. 


"Our  reliance  upon  the  physician. is  a  kind  of  despair  of  our- 
selves." 

— Emerson. 


Valuable  as  my  friend  was  to  me,  I  was  never- 
theless insulated  from  her,  as  from  every  other 
influence  save  that  of  my  physician.  This  chron- 
icle would  be  incomplete  without  a  record  of  his 
daily  visit,  and  its  effect  upon  the  patient.  It 
made  the  one  event  of  my  days.  Toward  it  I 
rose;  from  it  I  ebbed  ;  engrossed  by  it,  all  of  me 
stood  still.  It  was  my  solstice.  So  infantile  a 
dependence  upon  the  physician  is  proof  enough 
of  neurasthenia.  But  my  Doctor  deserved  the 
tribute,  for  the  gods  had  called  him  to  be  a  neu- 
rologist, and  not  only  by  virtue  of  resource,  intui- 
tion, despatch  and  decision,  but  because  he  min- 
istered unto  the  mind  as  well  as  the  body. 

In  his  character  the  traits  of  generalship  and 
gentleness  were  in  equipoise,  so  that  his  presence 

(90 


92  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

in  a  sick-room  was  equally  a  tonic  and  a  solace. 
When  he  entered  the  door  an  atmosphere  seemed 
to  come  in  with  him  as  of  noble  power,  controlled 
to  the  pitch  of  perfect  quietude;  and  as  he  ap- 
proached my  bedside,  and  concentrated  his  atten- 
tion upon  my  face,  the  look  of  his  eyes  and  the 
tone  of  his  voice,  which  otherwise  were  domi- 
nant, instantly  carried  healing  to  my  quivering 
nerves. 

We  live,  not  by  obvious  ways,  but  by  minute 
and  indirect  undercurrents;  and  it  is  the  intangi- 
ble influence  that  tells,  in  the  long  run. 

I  was  grateful  to  my  physician,  not  so  much 
for  the  palpable  benefit  of  his  treatment,  as  for  the 
impalpable  effect  upon  n^  character.  That  was 
out  of  joint;  "  the  immortal  part,"  as  Shakespeare 
put  it,  "needed  a  physician.' 1 

Self-mastery  and  cheerfulness  he  taught  me  ; 
and  his  wisdom  in  countless  small  things,  I 
absorbed  through  the  pores  of  the  skin.  Possi- 
bly he  saw  I  was  in  desperate  need  of  a  firm 
rule;  or  perhaps  he  thought  nothing  about  it, 
but  unconsciously  followed  his  own  orbit.  It  is 
all  one.    He  who  can  unwittingly  help  you  to 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


93 


live  is  greater  than  he  who  saves  your  life.  I 
entered  the  valley  of  illness  a  spoiled  child ;  I 
came  out  of  it  a  woman.  My  physician's  im- 
mortality of  influence  was  thus  accomplished 
in  me. 

Nor  did  I  ever  listen  to  him  or  watch  his 
skillful  therapeutic  hands,  as  he  busied  himself 
in  my  behalf,  without  wishing  to  transform  un- 
order of  mind  into  his  own  mental  likeness.  So 
much  do  I  admire  the  genius  of  common  sense, 
which  the  compounding  angels  forgot  to  put  into 
my  atoms  !  Well  might  I  envy  my  physician, 
for  he  possessed  the  effective  faculty  which  Em- 
erson commemorates  in  his  essa}*  on  "Power": 
"A  man  who  has  that  presence  of  mind  which 
can  bring  to  him  on  the  instant  all  he  knows,  is 
worth,  for  action,  a  dozen  men  who  know  as 
much,  but  can  only  bring  it  to  light  slowly. 
You  must  elect  your  work ;  you  must  take 
what  your  brain  can,  and  drop  all  the  rest.  Only 
so  can  that  amount  of  vital  force  accumulate 
which  can  make  the  step  between  knowing  and 
doing.  'Tis  a  step  out  of  a  chalk  circle  of 
imbecility  into  fruitfulness.      Many  an  artist, 


94  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

lacking  this,  lacks  all ;  he  sees  the  masculine 
Angelo  or  Cellini  with  despair.  He,  too,  is  up 
to  Nature  and  the  First  Cause  in  his  thought. 
But  the  spasm  to  collect  and  swing-  Ms  whole  bei?ig 
into  one  act,  he  has  not." 

And  so,  from  considering  a  particular  instance, 
I  came  to  meditate  long  upon  the  manifold  task 
of  the  physician  in  general.  He  who,  though 
weary,  is  not  to  show  weariness;  though  dis- 
gusted with  fhe  bare  cheapness  of  human  nature, 
is  to  wear  the  perpetual  livery  of  kindness ; 
whose  judgment  is  to  be  like  lightning,  and  his 
patience  as  the  strength  of  granite;  who,  while 
yet  a  stranger,  must  take  upon  his  shoulders  the 
responsibility  of  your  most  intimate  friend;  and, 
not  infrequently,  must  hold  your  destiny  (a  thing 
alien  to  him,  haply,)  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 


XVII. 
BURGEONING. 


XVII. 

BURGEONING. 

At  last  the  rootlets  of  the  trees 
Shall  find  the  prison  where  she  lies." 

—Holmes. 

"  Will  there  really  be  a  morning? 
Is  there  such  a  thing  as  day  ? 
Could  I  see  it  from  the  mountain 

If  I  were  as  tall  as  they  ? 
O  some  scholar  !    O  some  sailor  ! 

O  some  wise  man  from  the  skies  ! 
Please  to  tell  a  little  pilgrim 
Where  the  place  called  morning  lies." 

— Emily  Dickinson. 


Toward  the  sixth  month  of  my  supineness  I 
awoke  somewhat  to  the  small  happenings  about 
me,  and  began  to  take  a  fresh  pleasure  in  objec- 
tive life.  One  afternoon  the  nurse  opened  the 
window  blinds  and  a  great  elm,  who  had  known 
me  since  I  was  a  little  child,  looked  in  at  me  and 
trembled  gently  as  he  looked.  Then  he  fell  to 
talking  to  me.  All  the  afternoon  he  told  me  the 
most  unspeakable  things.  I  shall  not  divulge 
what  he  said.    Trees  are  reticent,  like  all  strong 

7  (97) 


98  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

beings,  and  when  reticent  folks  show  that  they 
trust  me,  I  keep  the  faith. 

And  then  a  spider  on  the  ceiling  and  I  became 
good  friends.  He  was  an  excellent  fellow  at  the 
right  distance.  My  eyes  followed  him  for  hours 
at  a  time  in  impotent  envy  of  his  efficiency. 
Here  was  a  producer;  here  was  one  who  earned 
his  salt.  By  special  interposition  I  several  times 
saved  him  from  sudden  death  at  the  hands  of  the 
chambermaid. 

And  there  was  a  spray  of  Wandering  Jew  that 
grew  so  attached  to  me  it  could  not  die  and  leave 
me,  but  took  root  and  cast  anchor  in  a  vase  on 
my  table.  It  had  a  way  of  stretching  out  its 
tendrils  lovingly  toward  my  bed,  and  I,  for  grat- 
itude, would  stroke  its  leaves  with  my  feeble 
hand.  One  day  I  found  my  inventive  faculty 
busy  constructing  a  spring  dress  in  imitation  of 
its  shaded  leaves  of  maroon  and  green.  Odd  for 
me  to  think  of  a  spring  dress! 

The  elm,  the  spider,  the  vine  and  I  had 
another  companion  —  the  first  sunbeam  of  the 
morning.  She  was  a  bright  and  gracious  elf. 
As  I  lay  awake  after  dawn  she  would  come  slid- 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


99 


ing  through  the  window  crevice  and  pirouette  on 
the  wall  in  a  radiance  of  good  will  —  then  break 
into  a  broad  smile  as  she  touched  my  black  hair 
with  her  luminous  finger.  So  full  of  optimism 
was  she  that  she  warmed  my  heart  and  filled  it 
with  the  faint  ecstasy  of  springtime. 

Sometimes  after  combing  my  hair,  now  very 
thin,  I  would  spread  it  out  over  the  pillow  to  imi- 
tate a  well-loved  picture  of  the  dying  Dora  Cop- 
perfield.  I  don't  know  which  was  the  child, 
Dora  or  Dora's  imitator,  but  the  bit  of  stage 
property  gave  me  at  least  a  taste  of  the  luxury  of 
woe,  and  helped  me  to  forget  the  clock. 

Nature  afforded  me  these  petty  diversions  to 
compensate  me  for  my  ugly  tete-d-tetes  with  in- 
somnia, for  now  that  weakness  was  going,  rest- 
lessness had  come.  At  first  the  cessation  of  pain 
was  delicious,  but  this  Schopenhauer- delight 
changed  into  a  tingling  irritability,  and  I  was  a 
porcupine,  a  bear  and  a  hyena.  Occasionally 
the  mood  would  react,  and  I  would  subside  into  a 
strain  of  good  humor  so  divine,  and  would  behave 
with  a  sweetness  so  distracting,  that  I  trembled 
for  fear  I  should  become  an  angel  before  my  time. 


IOO  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 

If  this  were  a  piece  of  fiction,  I  should  cloy 
the  reader  with  the  description  of  these  angel 
visits.  But  it  is  history,  and  I  am  bound  by  the 
love  of  truth  to  record  that  they  were  few  and 
far  between.  Out  of  them  I  would  plunge  into 
my  old  intolerable  rancor. 

Fifty  times  a  day  I  would  spring  up  in  bed, 
toss  back  my  disheveled  hair  and  turn  over  the 
hot,  hot  pillow  ;  then  fall  back,  twitching,  my 
back  pulsating  like  an  eager  heart. 

Was  the  Invertebrate  about  to  evolve  ? 


XVIII. 


XVIII. 


REVEILLE. 

•'  Morning  waits  at  the  end  of  the  world, 
And  the  world  is  at  our  feet." 

— Kipling. 

"  Paradise  is  under  the  shadow  of  swords." 

— Eastern  Proverb. 


Innumerable  words  out  of  books  now  assailed 
me,  and  a  pageant  of  living  desires  importuned 
the  awakening  consciousness.  Why  should  I 
expiate  an}'  longer?  I  was  consumed  already 
with  a  strenuous  inaction.  The  world  was  call- 
ing me ;  I  must  be  abroad  to  fulfill  my  destiny. 
A  troop  of  purposes  and  predispositions  that  had 
crept  aside  during  the  grim  days  now  stood  up, 
clamoring  to  be  executed  by  my  hands,  my  feet, 
my  brain,  my  soul.  I  felt  powerful  and  tigerish 
in  spirit,  as  if  I  could  grind  to  a  dust  all  impedi- 
ments that  hindered  my  will.  The  contrast  be- 
tween this  internal  electricity  and  my  apparent 
feebleness  of  muscle  struck  me  as  humorous. 
(io3) 


104  ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE. 


Three  months  previous  it  would  have  appeared 
piteous.  Now  and  then  I  slipped  from  my  bed 
and  walked  around  the  room  to  try  my  strange, 
new  feet.  My  surprise  was  great  to  find  that  the 
same  body  which  had  ached  so  long  now  felt 
flexible,  alive  and  sweet.  I  moved  with  a  touch 
of  that  audacious  suavity  which  Alexander  Sal- 
vini  infuses  into  the  role  of  Cirullio.  I  was  wood 
and  steel.  But  no  longer  a  violin  !  No  longer  a 
dagger !  As  to  my  mind,  it  was  clarified  and  at 
peace.  In  a  word,  I  was  poised ;  for  the  first  time 
in  my  mistaken  existence  I  was  pure  Greek.  I 
deified  the  body.  It  filled  me  with  happy  ani- 
malit}^  to  feel  the  blood  sweeping  warmly  and 
evenly  under  the  skin. 

Where  was  my  spirituality,  my  nonsense,  my 
festered  egoism?  What  had  become  of  my  host 
of  symptomatic  vagaries?  The}"  had  flown  out 
of  the  window.  I  had  forgotten  them  as  com- 
pletely as  the  young  Spring  forgets  aged  Winter, 
to  whose  snowr  she  owes  so  much.  Outside  the 
open  windows  the  sap  in  the  trees  kept  time  to 
my  riotous  veins,  and  the  quickening  air  stirred 
to  the  beating  of  my  heart.    Spring,  with  her 


ANNALS  OF  AN  INVERTEBRATE.  105 


annual  message  of  reincarnation,  was  flattering 
me.  then,  by  imitation0 

How  infinite  Nature  seemed,  in  recuperation ! 
The  inherent  puissance  and  charm  of  matter 
thrilled  me  through  and  through  with  its  august 
significance. 

Finally — but  this  was  after  a  tedious  convales- 
cence—  there  came  a  day  when  I  was  actually 
done  with  invertebrations. 

I  stood  erect  at  the  open  window  and  lifted  up 
my  eyes.  Every  tree  nodded  me  a  cordial  greet- 
ing. The  sky  was  a  declaration  of  tenderness ; 
the  breeze  a  challenge  and  a  caress.  The}'  knew 
I  had  come  back.  They  remembered  that  I  was 
part  of  the  universal  scheme. 

I  threw  my  head  back  proudly,  and  stretching 
out  both  arms  toward  the  world  and  the  morning, 
with  Napoleon's  own  indomitable  exultance  1 
cried  :  "  The  future,  the  future  ! 

Is  mine  ! 1 ' 


tr 


EPILOGUE. 


EPILOGUE. 


"  A  book  is  a  series  of  confidences  to  an  ideal  friend.'" 

— Ga  ulier. 


Richard  Mansfield  has  been  heard  to  confess 
in  a  curtain  speech  that  nothing  conld  induce 
him  to  go  to  a  play  like  his  ' '  Dr.  Jekyl  and  Mr. 
Hyde,"  and  I,  likewise,  would  never  risk  the 
reading  of  such  a  chronicle  as  this.  Yet  I  remem- 
ber that  a  great  philosopher  said,  that,  to  the  phy- 
sician, the  laws  of  disease  were  as  beautiful  as  the 
laws  of  health  :  that  in  fact,  everything  was  beau- 
tiful seen  in  the  light  of  intellect,  or  as  truth. 

Haply,  then,  this  record  of  pain  and  the  com- 
ing out  of  pain  will  find  its  own  place  in  some 
intelligence,  quick  to  relish  experience  in  any 
form,  and  adequate  to  perceive,  in  the  remotest 
gropings  of  the  underself,  the  unfolding  blossoms 
of  Nature's  great  law  of  causation. 


(109) 


The  End. 


Dulce  University 
Perkins  Library 
660-5870 


